


Outside the Silver Thread

by Istezada



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Character Death, Fjord is kinda fucked up y'all, Gen, Post-Episode 30, Train of Thought
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-14
Updated: 2018-08-17
Packaged: 2019-06-27 03:44:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15677361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Istezada/pseuds/Istezada
Summary: Fjord doesn't say a lot. He doesn't know whattosay.But it takes him a while to go to sleep that morning.





	1. Shady Creek Run

**Author's Note:**

  * For [duckbunny](https://archiveofourown.org/users/duckbunny/gifts).



Fjord stared up at the faint glow of the orange-brown dome filling the slavers’ dining hall. His fingers were laced together behind his head and it was the most comfortable he’d been since…

In days.

Since he’d completely fucked up on watch with Yasha. Since waking Jester up with their conversation and getting her mixed up in all this. Since fucking Lorenzo…

He’d stepped over the scattered cinder and ash on his way to the stairs. He’d seen the thick trail of blood that hitched halfway up the stairs, the crusting handprints on the worn stone where someone (Caleb. He’d seen the dark, wet stains on the man’s clothes.) had braced himself upright. He’d seen the bodies, rapidly (creepily) decomposing where they’d been gathered or left to lie where they fell. He’d seen Jester’s face when Caleb tried to be gentle and Beau and Nott made her understand.

The edges of pain pulled at the corners of his eyelids and Fjord made his fingers relax. Uncurl. Release their grip in his hair.

Fuck.

Fuck!

Mollymauk.

Molly.

And they’d kept coming. Even after _that_. After Lorenzo…

And Molly.

If Yasha’d been out there. Or Jester.

But Beau and Caleb and Nott? They had no reason, hadn’t shown any inclination.

Molly would come after Yasha. That was like the sun rising. It happened, no matter how hungover you were. And Yasha would have come after Molly, if their places had been switched.

If their places had been switched they’d both be alive right now.

Probably.

Fuck. Why hadn’t he heard them coming? Why couldn’t he have actually done his job instead of talking? Instead of waking up Jester and then _leaving_ the campsite to keep talking?

“I would have laid down my life for you guys.”

Beau said that.

 _Beau_.

Caleb hadn’t said anything. Had been surprised when Jester healed him, when Fjord thanked him. Like he expected to be expected. Like he didn’t disappear into his twitchy-ass head half the time he made fire shoot from his fingertips. Like he hadn’t almost died rescuing Fjord from his own damn mistakes.

Like he hadn’t fucking burned Lorenzo to a blackened, crunchy grease stain in the bottom of his own fortress and then calmly sat with Yasha’s body (still breathing, thank the gods and her own stubborn fury) while the rest of them searched for more slavers or loot.

Or books.

There hadn’t been any books.

He wasn’t that surprised. They hadn’t seemed the type to spend their evenings perusing the latest novels or historic or magical treatises. Lorenzo was not what…

Shit.

He’d spent the last interminable time unable to speak and everything in his head sounded with the gravely, sadistic calm of whatever the _fuck_ Lorenzo was. Had been. The cadence and speech patterns were too godsdamned familiar

Lorenzo had magic. So many of them had magic. But they weren’t… book people. Not book magic. Not like Caleb’s.

He'd wanted books. He'd wanted _something_. 

The fuck was Caleb doing here at all? After Molly died. After Lorenzo murdered him. (Shit. He remembered the shouts. The edge of a cold breeze sifting past, colder than the weather. The smell of burning meat. The muted, muffled, _deafening_ sound of Lorenzo's amusement. Right there. Close enough to _do_ something. If he hadn’t been muzzled and chained and locked in a cage like a fucking animal.) How had Caleb not just taken Nott and fucking disappeared?

But no. They’d found a dwarf and a firbolg. They’d talked to that Mardun woman. They’d just… kept coming.

“We didn’t have a choice.”

Nott said that.

 _Nott_.

Not Caleb. Caleb _made_ the choice.

Fjord had no idea why.


	2. Glory Run Road

That Mardun woman turned out to be intimidating as hell. And a tiefling, which he somehow hadn’t expected. Served him right for expecting anything out of this trip. He hadn’t been expecting Lorenzo either. Or Molly. Or Caduceus Clay. Or any of the rest of them.

Caduceus.

Who meets a teenage asshole, a filthy red-head, and a fucking _goblin_ and just decides to put down his tea and risk his life? Rescue people he’s never heard of before? Deal with Caleb or no deal.

Fjord glanced sideways at the pink-haired firbolg sitting on the cart beside him.

He reminded Fjord of people he’d known back on the Coast, that level of consistent content. Not that he was about to ask Caduceus if he was like this all the time or if it was because of his fucking _dead-people-tea_.

What the shit kind of deal did Caleb make with the firbolg anyway? _Caleb_.

Caleb. Who had lost Frumpkin in Lorenzo’s…

House.

Base of operations.

Dungeon.

Fjord caught himself on the verge of summoning his falchion and folded his arms instead, fingers digging into his biceps even through his clothes and armor. Good thing Caduceus was driving right now. Mama Mia and Dancing Queen didn’t deserve him jerking on the reins.

Frumpkin had died.

Caleb hadn’t said a word. Had stuck his head out of the carriage at the border when Fjord asked about Frumpkin to make an exaggerated noise of obvious death while dragging his thumb across his neck.

Caleb, who stared down a Crown’s Guard for kicking Frumpkin into oblivion. Caleb, who never shut up about his fucking cat when it (he) wasn’t at his beck and call and finger snap.

What the hell had happened since he’d gotten everyone into this?

Molly had happened.

That coat, fluttering in the pale winter sunlight, scattered with patches of snow. That coat almost broke him. Looking at the consequences of what he’d done. Even more than Yasha’s sleep. She’d heal. She’d wake up. (She _had_ woken up.) Even more than Jester’s quiet tears and apparently unquenchable smile.

Molly had happened. Molly was dead. And that fucking coat…

But he hadn’t broken. He couldn’t. He promised Molly to return the favor and he couldn’t do that if he broke. The rest of the Nein had enough to deal with, to grieve, without Fjord…

So he’d called up his sword, seen the new golden glimmer of the blade, ignored the bruises that grated under his gloves and bracers, and saluted Molly the way Vandren taught him. Because there was fuck all else he could do.

Yasha…

Fuck.

He wasn’t even sure she’d heard what Caleb told her.

“It happened again.”

Those words landed in his stomach as heavy as Caleb’s silent head-shake back in the dungeon. As Caduceus’ meal, as delicious as it had tasted. Her scream was nothing… _nothing_ he’d ever heard before. Ever.

Molly was gone.

And she’d gone. 

And they couldn’t stop her.

And he'd just watched, wordless as the dull rumble under his ribs, while Caleb turned around, still cradling Nott like she was the child she seemed, and cut off Ophelia Mardun when she tried to pry, to offer sympathy.

And she’d taken it. Just nodded, like the ragged wizard was her equal, and gotten back into her carriage.

And they’d gotten back in their carriage and cart and kept heading south. Because this was the fucking job the Gentleman hired them to do.

How the hell did he end up here, shivering down the Glory Run Road? He’d wanted to go to Rexxentrum. To the Academy that everyone talked about. That letter was somewhere in his things that the other four… that the other three had been lugging around. He’d wanted to _learn_. To learn everything he could about everything.

What about Vandren. What about fucking Savien. What about the rest of the crew. What about… 

What was he doing?


	3. The Evening Nip

Six days, they said. That’s how long it took Caleb and Nott and Beau and Caduceus and Keg and… the other firbolg. Nila?... to rescue the nine people buried in Lorenzo’s dungeon.

Six. Almost a week.

Less time than the trip from Molly’s grave to Zadash. He wasn’t sure if it felt longer or shorter. He’d tried to keep track of the time, but with the tarps over the cages and the manacles sending them off into sleep at Lorenzo’s whim…

The last week has been just as unexpected. Almost.

Beau and Caleb, for one thing. Two things?

Sure, they’ve always been the two humans in the group. The “Empire kids” he’d heard them call themselves once or twice. But Beau would sooner punch her problems than talk to them, while Caleb would prefer to hide than confront anything or anyone.

And after that dust-up over Calianna’s bowl in the Gentleman’s safe-house? And… could he even call that a hug? Had either of them _ever_ hugged before?

It’s not like Fjord was an expert on the subject. But _fuck_ , that’d been painful to watch.

Now they joked about Beau’s sex life. (He was pretty sure they were joking or trying to) Caleb tried to be helpful. Apologized (he was pretty sure that was trying to be an apology) for the lack of privacy in his incredible bubble-fort.

And the touch at Molly’s grave. Caleb was still holding Nott and he’d shifted her weight to one side, so he could reach out to Beau. Grab her shoulder. Wordlessly. Just… contact and comfort. Like a normal person. And Beau took it, appreciated it, even if it did seem to startle her.

Jester, too. Jester’s capacity for joy was…

She said she’d been having an extended dance party under the safety of the cart’s illusion. Or taking turns with Nott to make rude gestures that no one could see. Because it was Nott and Jester and of course they were.

He woke up at night, sometimes, and could still hear the tunes she’d hummed past her muzzle. Familiar songs. Unfamiliar melodies. Flourishes of notes that sounded like the wild birds in Nicodranas.

She was as unchanged as Caleb was different.

The wizard was giving shit away now? 

Not money. He was pretty clear on claiming his portion of the coin they found or earned. 

But he hadn’t tried to keep anything they’d found in Shady Creek Run. He’d _insisted_ on not keeping anything, except the set of manacles and even those were in the bottomless bag he’d shoved at Fjord.

And he was talking to people. On _purpose_. And studying people. (That, at least, was normal for Caleb.) And just…

Ophelia Mardun spoke to him like they were equals. Had accepted his word to vouch for Fjord and Caduceus’ presence and worth. Caduceus made deals with the man, apparently. Sitting in the Evening Nip, he ignored Beau and Fjord’s conversation about blame and guilt and just stated things.

“You cannot blame yourself when you are taken advantage of.”

“I think it is an act.”

“You can’t properly be part of civilization until you have gotten shit-faced and thrown up.”

Two weeks (and a little more) after Fjord talked the Nein into helping the Schusters. After Caleb himself was speared to the wall in the Gearhold in that fight. Two weeks (a little less) after he got Yasha and Jester kidnapped by Lorenzo. Two weeks (a little less… gods, he was as bad as Caleb about the timing of this) after Molly fucking _died_ trying to rescue them. Two weeks (a little less)…

And not an angry word from anyone. Not from Caleb, who still hadn’t washed the stiff and cracking blood from his clothes, who still didn’t have a cat draped around his neck. Not from Nott, who was apparently busy introducing Caduceus to booze? Not from… well. Beau and her stubborn inability to understand why he blamed himself was a little abrupt. 

Pelor’s glowing ballsack, she was so fucking young sometimes.

But…

“Here is to fucking making it work.”

He was going to ask them.

Again.

He was going to ask for their help.

The Academy had seemed like a good idea, but that was before he started… _absorbing_ things. Before he realized that his new powers were going to go on developing regardless of what he did. Before the Nein. Before Lorenzo and Molly.

He was going to ask. And if Caleb kept on stepping to the front, well… he’d need backup. Fjord had been Vandren’s second. He could be Caleb’s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This seems to be the end for now.
> 
> Thanks for joining me on this somewhat disjointed train of thought!

**Author's Note:**

> For Duckbunny. S'all his fault this went from "Books. There weren't any books." to... this.


End file.
